Calling all Twihards... the Twilight franchise is making a comeback - AOL News Calling all Twihards... the Twilight franchise is making a comeback Before you go, we thought you'd like these... Share Oct 1st 2014 10:04AM It's the news all Twilight fans have dreamed of. The popular series of vampire novels-turned money-spinning movies is making a triumphant return... to Facebook. Two years following the release of Breaking Dawn: Part Two, it's been announced that filmmakers are to produce five short films based on Bella Swan and Edward Cullen's epic love story. More videos from AOL Twilight Saga finale breaks box-office records | Film | The Guardian Robert Pattinson Twilight Saga finale breaks box-office records Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 impresses critics and accountants with the biggest haul of the series, prompting rumours of more films Kellan Lutz and Kristen Stewart in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2.

Photograph: Allstar/Summit Entertainment/Sportsphoto Ltd Monday 19 November 2012 07.39 EST First published on Monday 19 November 2012 07.39 EST Close This article is 4 years old The final film in the Twilight series has debuted with the highest opening of the series so far , an impressive $340.9m (£214m) worldwide. The gargantuan haul for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 , which sees Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson star as Bella Cullen (née Swan) and her bloodsucking love Edward for the final time, also achieved the eighth highest opening in box office history. It was particularly successful outside the US, where it picked up almost $200m in 61 countries. Bill Condon's film took a slightly lower total in North America, $141.3m, than predecessor New Moon managed in 2009. Despite its large take, Breaking Dawn – Part 2 has some way to go before it can challenge 2012's most successful films at the box office.

The Avengers leads with $1.51bn and final Christopher Nolan Batman instalment The Dark Knight Rises is in second spot with $1.08bn. Reading this on mobile? Click here to view video review Based on the series of four young-adult novels by Stephenie Meyer , the Twilight series of five films was supposed to end with Breaking Dawn – Part 2. However, executives at studio Lionsgate have hinted at the possibility of future films set in the same universe, in order to continue what has become a hugely lucrative $2.8bn box office cash cow for Hollywood. The final film sees vampire-turned Bella and her husband Edward vying to protect their half-vampire child Renesmee from the attentions of a nefarious vampire clan who may wish to do her harm. It has garnered some of the best reviews so far for what has largely been a critically derided series.

The final Twilight movie debuted with a whopping £15.85m, but the latest James Bond is still on course for a UK record, writes Charles Gant Published: 20 Nov 2012 Twilight virgins will be mystified by this final bite in the vampire saga but fans will love it, writes Philip French Published: 17 Nov 2012 Saga finale looks set to devour all, Skyfall boosts Sony, Lincoln lifts off and Silver Linings Playbook sparks Oscars chatter. By Jeremy Kay Published: 19 Nov 2012 The oddly chaste vampire saga comes to an end with Breaking Dawn - Part 2. We've watched all five films so you don't have to Published: 16 Nov 2012 'The Mortal Instruments' Is Not The Next 'Hunger Games.' So What Is? 'The Mortal Instruments' Is Not The Next 'Hunger Games.' So What Is? {{article.article.images.featured.caption}} Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Full Bio The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer. Loading ... Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe The reviews are in for the latest hot young adult book adaptation and they're not good. The Mortal Instruments gets a terrible 10 out of 100 on Rotten Tomatoes . Many of the critics seem almost angry about the movie. Kyle Smith at the New York Post says: The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones hopes to be the start of a new franchise for tweens and Twihards, but the twuth is this twash is anything but a twiumph. And Mark Olsen of the LA Times calls talk of a sequel more of a "threat than a treat." Pundits say there's almost no buzz for the movie outside of the books' teen fans and Exhibitor Relations expects it will struggle at the box office bringing in just $15 million this weekend. If the film flops, it will be just the latest young adult adaptation that failed to become the next big thing. With the success of Harry Potter, Twilight and now Hunger Games, YA novels are the hottest thing going in Hollywood. The multi-book series come with built-in sequel potential and usually a built-in fan base.

They appeal to the sweetest demographic (teens) with tons of crossover potential for older men and women. But Hollywood is finding that just because a YA book was a hit at the bookstores doesn't mean it will be a hit in theaters. February's Beautiful Creatures was one of the most upsetting examples of how badly things can go for a YA movie adaptation. The popular series of four books hit theaters Valentine's Day but it was dead on arrival. It opened in 6th place with just $7.5 million. The film went on to earn just $60 million, about the same as it cost to make the movie. But considering only half the ticket money goes back to studio (in this case Warner Bros.), the film was a loss. March's The Host didn't fare much better. While the book the movie is based on wasn't a series, it was written by Stephenie Meyer , the woman behind the Twilight franchise. The popular book seemed like an obvious choice for Hollywood. But again, the film flopped. The Host opened in sixth place the weekend of March 29th with just $10 million. It went on to earn $48 million on an estimated budget of $40 million.

So why can't Hollywood make another YA novel adaptation work? For one thing, making hit movies is hard. "Hits like Harry Potter and Twilight are rare," says Jeff Bock of Exhibitor Relations. "All the elements have to be there for the movie to works." That means not just good source material but a good script, the right director and actors and the avoiding all of the millions of little pitfalls that face every movie production. It's much easier for a movie to flop than to become a billion-dollar franchise. Hollywood isn't giving up on the YA market though. Several more adaptation are scheduled to hit screens in the next 18 months including Ender's Game, The Maze Runner and Divergent. Ender's Game is hitting theaters under a thick cloud of controversy over author Orson Scott Card's stance again gay marriage. Divergent has maybe the best chance of all the upcoming films. Although the film might not reach Hunger Game levels, it could be enough of a success next March to score a sequel. The film recently had a splashy Entertainment Weekly cover and it's from Lionsgate and Summit, the studios behind Twilight and Hunger Games. Those folks know a thing or two about selling YA adaptions to the widest audience possible.

If enough of these movies crash and burn though, Hollywood will move on to the next big thing. It always does. Follow me on Twitter at DorothyatForbes . 'Entwined With You' Crossfire Series: Coming to a TV Near You? Author Sylvia Day is in Talks for a Television Show for the Books, Favors Henry Cavill as Gideon : TRENDING NEWS : Beauty World News email Get the Most Popular Beauty World News Stories in a Weekly Newsletter With the third book of the Crossfire series, "Entwined with You" set to hit the shelves fans cannot get enough of Gideon Cross and Eva Tramell. Well , Crossfire series followers will really go insane when their couple will be coming to their living room every week. Sylvia Day, author of the Crossfire Series including "Bared to You," and "Reflected in You," revealed that the series had been optioned for television adaptation.

Accusations of the novels being adapted on the big screen are false, as the novels will not take the "Fifty Shades of Grey" route into film adaptation In an interview featured on Henrycavill.org, the author revealed that the she is working with Lionsgate on a vision to portray the series on television. "I'm thrilled to be working with Lionsgate on Crossfire and I'm excited about their vision for the series - which is my vision in living color - coming to fruition." Lionsgate is known for distributing works that are seen as too controversial for large American companies such as "American Psycho" and "Fahrenheit 9/11." Lionsgate is also home to successful films such as "The Day After Tomorrow," "The Hunger Games," and the "Twilight" franchise. In the interview Day mentioned her interest in casting Henry Cavill as Gideon Cross being he is a fan favorite and their ideal image of what Cross would look like. Cavill starred in the television series "The Tudors," and can most recently be seen playing Clark Kent a.k.a Superman in the upcoming film, "Man of Steel." Sylvia Day told the site that he is pretty much a perfect fit for the role.

"Most importantly, he's the right age. Choosing an actor who isn't yet thirty is very important to me. Also, Henry is beautiful. Who doesn't love looking at him? He also conveys vulnerability and longing very well." "In the last season of The Tudors, when Brandon fell in love with Brigitte, Henry was stunning in his display of yearning and hopelessness, lust and love." "That said, I've been talking with the producers about the story and their plans for the show, and I trust that they'll find the perfect Gideon." "They're big fans of Gideon and Eva, and they're paying attention to what the readers want and what I want and what will do justice to the story." The latest Crossfire Series book, "Entwined with You" is set to be released June 4th.

Like Us on Facebook Books + Twilight | Books | The Guardian Books + Twilight The successful YA author attempts adult fiction for the first time, promising a ‘tautly plotted’ thriller about a government spy forced to do one last job Published: 19 Jul 2016 AnnaRose15: ‘With thrills and adrenaline, they have a sense of adventure that allows readers to immerse themselves in a new world’ Published: 12 Apr 2016 Lawmakers are calling for Missouri academic Melissa Click to be fired – in part because she conducts research on romance novels, and the hypocrisy is revealing Published: 8 Jan 2016 How The Hunger Games staged a revolution It was always an unlikely Hollywood franchise: the story of a feminist hero trapped in a dystopian capitalist nightmare. But its message of rebellion and revolution has gone round the world and grossed billions. As its fans explain, the odds were ever in its favour Published: 18 Nov 2015 VampireGirl: ‘This book is simply amazing.

It plays with your imagination’ Published: 12 Oct 2015 World exclusive: in her first written interview, Stephenie Meyer tells us why and how she has written her gender swapping reimagining of Twilight: Life and Death, where Bella and Edward become Beau and Edythe Published: 8 Oct 2015 As Twilight turns 10, we compile some of our favourite quotes from Stephenie Meyer’s iconic first novelRead an interview (a world exclusive) with Stephenie Meyer on why she has written Life and Death, her gender-swapping reimagining of Twilight Published: 8 Oct 2015 Gender-swap Twilight should expose the flaws in the original – I can’t wait Mathilda Gregory Stephenie Meyer’s Life and Death has a mopey teenage boy lusting over a sexy, strong, much older woman.

That’s thrillingly subversive Published: 7 Oct 2015 With more than 900 new entries, including crossover, YA and graphic novels, this is an indispensable guide for old hands and new Published: 18 Apr 2015 Children's books A guide to reading classics for boys Site member TheFanaticalReader found that when they told a few people at school that they were reading Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, the students gawped like they were a rare and exotic fish. So here’s TheFanaticalReader’s troubleshooting guide on how to read a classic, encourage your friends to do the same and increase your street cred Published: 15 Apr 2015 It’s a phenomenon has spread across the young adult fiction universe. It has consumed the media. Beware the dreaded love triangle, warns site member Wren Published: 13 Feb 2015 Children's books Love against the odds in books, a Valentine's Day special Authors can be very cruel about putting barriers to love just for the sake of a great story.

James Dawson on the top 10 literary devices for love against the odds, from ‘expiration dating’ (think The Fault in Our Stars) to love triangles (The Hunger Games) to the modern day Romeo and Juliets, the star-crossed lovers of Noughts & Crosses Published: 12 Feb 2015 Not Catching Fire: 21 YA adaptations that failed to launch franchises · Inventory · The A.V. Club Share Tweet It’s no great mystery why Hollywood keeps looking for material in the young-adult section of Barnes & Noble. When a YA series hits, it hits big. But for every Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, or Bella Swan, there are five Alex Riders; not every kid- or teen-lit character makes a profitable leap from page to screen. Below, we’ve singled out 21 movies, all based on popular book series for young readers, that failed to inspire a corresponding hit movie franchise. Narnia, which made it to three films, is exempt. Percy Jackson, which somehow limped to two, is not. 1.

The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones (2013) Cassandra Clare’s fantasy novels aren’t just a YA series; they’re practically their own library, with the six-book Mortal Instruments cycle (published from 2007 through 2014) giving way to additional series of prequels and sequels. It was only natural that her realm of half-angels, vampires, werewolves, semi-demons, and warlocks would expand into film, and kid-friendly franchiser Harald Zwart (Agent Cody Banks; The Pink Panther 2) was to shepherd the adaptation. Released toward the end of summer 2013 with plenty of promotional buildup (long-lead trailers, quasi-hip soundtrack), The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones landed with a faint thud, perhaps splitting its genre audience with the same weekend’s The World’s End and You’re Next.

The film’s production company insisted for a few months following City Of Bones’ inauspicious debut (on more than 3,000 movie screens—and, shortly thereafter, on the list of the weakest opening weekends to result from a movie playing on more than 3,000 screens ) that the planned sequel would move ahead. But those plans morphed into a TV series reboot, supposedly to give the mythology more breathing room. Shadowhunters may emerge sometime next year, presumably without stars Lily Collins and Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Why it didn’t take off: Besides a laughable mouthful of a title, The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones movie features a nonstop flood of exposition and taxonomy, straining to explain a convoluted world that includes just about every kind of fantastical humanoid creature short of centaurs, and calls them all by alternate names for maximum confusion. Maybe non-diehards weren’t in the mood for a mythology exam as they faced back-to-school blues. [Jesse Hassenger] 2.

Ender’s Game (2013) Orson Scott Card’s 1985 sci-fi novel is a beloved classic, but by the time Gavin Hood’s film adaptation hit screens, Card himself was somewhat less than beloved. He had campaigned publicly against gay marriage and made numerous controversial statements in the process, angering fans and troubling producers and the film’s cast, who spent more time disavowing Card than actually promoting the film. While reviews were generally positive, audiences stayed away, and it earned just over half its $110 million budget domestically. Why it didn’t take off: It’s impossible to tell how much impact Card’s controversial statements had on the film’s reception, but they certainly didn’t help. Of course, even if the film had been a smash, a series might have been tough to pull off. The second book in the series, Speaker For The Dead, follows an adult Ender, traveling thousands of years further into the future, meaning that neither star Asa Butterfield nor any of the supporting cast would participate without some serious rewrites. Card has written 16 Ender books and counting, but many of them follow supporting characters on their own journeys and only involve Ender tangentially.

A sprawling film series was probably never a possibility. [Mike Vago] 3. The Golden Compass (2007) The first installment of Philip Pullman’s wonderful His Dark Materials trilogy, and arguably its best, The Golden Compass is a heady adventure that explores the darkness of organized religion and the wonders of steampunk fantasy. The world, an alternate Oxford, is both familiar and new; it’s a perfect playground for Lyra, the protagonist, to learn about her own history and the prophecy she is meant to fulfill. Why it didn’t take off: The casting for The Golden Compass was flawless: Nicole Kidman played the icy Mrs. Coulter, Daniel Craig the powerful Lord Asriel, and Sam Elliott the Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby. The film’s voice-overs and bogged-down plotting didn’t help with an already complicated plot. There could be more to it than just a flat, boring movie, though: Elliott has publicly blamed the Catholic Church for the lack of a sequel, saying, “The Catholic church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I’m concerned.” Sadly ironic for a series of books that attacks organized religion head-on. [Laura M. Browning] 4.

Beautiful Creatures (2013) Alcon Entertainment snapped up the rights to Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s Beautiful Creatures, the first book of four in their Caster Chronicles saga, immediately after the book’s release in late 2009. In a marketplace dominated by YA adaptations, it’s understandable why Alcon moved so quickly. The book has all the necessary ingredients for a YA hit: a fated, forbidden love affair between an average boy and a witchy woman; magical powers; and goofy, esoteric terminology. But Beautiful Creatures didn’t storm the public consciousness as a book, and when the film was released in 2013, it was an unknown quantity to a large swath of the target audience. Richard LaGravenese directed Beautiful Creatures from his own adapted screenplay and attracted a talented cast, including Emma Thompson, Jeremy Irons, and Viola Davis. Despite its handsome look, strong performances, and general faithfulness to the source material, Beautiful Creatures just barely recouped its $60 million budget. Why it didn’t take off: There was a lack of enthusiasm around the film. The public wasn’t convinced this was a phenomenon they needed to catch up with.

The diehard fans, meanwhile, had casting gripes that didn’t subside after they saw the finished product. [Joshua Alston] 5. Eragon (2006) The Inheritance Cycle, the four-book dragon-centric series that Eragon kicks off, was written by a teenager—at least in its early days. Christopher Paolini wrote Eragon at the age of 15 and after a successful self-publishing stint, the book was republished by Knopf in 2003, when Paolini was 20. Even bigger sales and three more books followed. Shortly after the first book sequel and just a year after the first Narnia movie, the film version of Eragon appeared, looking and sounding very much like an earnestly third-rate fantasy story penned by an enthusiastic novice. It opened to $23 million and finished with $75 million domestic (and a quarter of a billion worldwide!)—more than plenty of 2006 releases that pursued the same audience, from kid pictures (like Monster House ) to action fantasies (like Underworld: Evolution ). In other words, it did pretty damn well for an absolutely terrible movie.

But perhaps sensing what they got away with, Fox opted not to press their luck with any film sequels. Why it didn’t take off: Ripping off Star Wars is not necessarily the worst commercial strategy, nor an unusual impulse for a teenage writer, but seriously: Much of Eragon is a beat-for-beat retelling of A New Hope, slightly rejiggered for fans who always wished one of the main villains could be isolated far away from most of the other characters. Or maybe that was just one of John Malkovich’s conditions for his appearance as said villain. [Jesse Hassenger] 6. The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) 2008 was a simpler time. Back then, in the days before Peter Jackson started dicing up 300-page novels into multiple movies, condensing was still a viable page-to-screen adaptation strategy. Just look at The Spiderwick Chronicles. Following a trio of siblings who stumble upon a magical alternate world of faeries and goblins, the movie covers the plot of five separate books—a whole series of illustrated adventures by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black—in a fleet 96 minutes.

The film was mostly well received, and it doubled its $90 million budget in worldwide ticket sales. Somewhere out there, though, a Paramount executive is tossing and turning, his dreams haunted by the phantom box-office grosses of The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Wrath Of Mulgarath—Part 2. Why it didn’t take off: Well, in a way, it couldn’t take off. All five installments are covered in one movie, leaving no place for a prospective series to go—except, perhaps, to DiTerlizzi and Black’s sequel trilogy, Beyond The Spiderwick Chronicles, which probably would have been greenlit if the film had done just a little better. [A.A. Dowd] 7. The Indian In The Cupboard (1995) Premiering the summer of 1995, The Indian In The Cupboard assembled an all-star team of behind-the-scenes talent to adapt Lynne Reid Banks’ novel of friendship, time travel, miniature collection, magic cupboards, and magic keys. Directed by Frank Oz from a script by E.T. screenwriter Melissa Mathison, the project was one of Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall’s first projects following their split from Amblin Entertainment.

Like Banks’ The Indian And The Cupboard and the four books that followed it, the film follows the adventures of a young protagonist, Omri, who discovers that one birthday gift (an otherwise ordinary piece of storage) has the ability to bring another (a plastic Iroquois warrior) to life. The big-screen Indian In The Cupboard captures the wonder and the thematic poignancy of its source material, but extensive (and expensive) green-screen work and a change of setting (from the Thatcher-era England of the source material) rob the film of personality and specificity. Unfortunately, a sequence in which Omri pits Darth Vader, RoboCop, and a T. Rex in a cross-property cupboard face-off was no compensation. Why it didn’t take off: Flattened by some of the toughest summer competition of the ’90s—including Batman Forever, Apollo 13, and Pocahontas—The Indian In The Cupboard couldn’t come alive at the box office. The intimacy of Oz’s vision couldn’t match the blockbuster scale of the production, preventing moviegoers from witnessing later chapters in the Indian saga that feature a villainous gang of skinheads and some intense mythology cartwheels.

[Erik Adams] 8-9. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) and Percy Jackson: Sea Of Monsters (2013) Author Rick Riordan created a can’t-miss YA formula with his Percy Jackson book series, based on a boy who discovers that he is the lost heir of Poseidon. He soon meets up with other demi-gods, half-siblings, and creatures from both Greek and Roman mythology. Riordan’s transference of ancient legends to the present-day secured the series’ success through five volumes. It sounded like a shoo-in for a blockbuster film series as well, but a lot of what made Percy Jackson so magical on the page got lost in its clunky translation to the big screen, which relied too much on big effects and not enough on small character moments. The second movie, 2013’s Percy Jackson And The Sea Of Monsters, actually did better than the failed first (2010’s Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief), but Riordan’s followers complained that the cinematic versions held only a faint resemblance to their source material.

When it was announced in spring 2014 that the third movie in the series had been cancelled, Percy Jackson fans were relieved instead of outraged. Why it didn’t take off: Since the Harry Potter series set such a high bar for effective YA book-to-film fantasy-based adaptations: Percy Jackson fans had reason to be hopeful, then were crushingly disappointed. Also, the benevolent Cyclops sidekick played better on the page than the screen. [Gwen Ihnat] 10. The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising (2007) Of all the young adult series on this list, Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising sequence might be the one least suited for a big budget movie adaptation. Slow and thoughtful, Cooper’s books are ultimately about the importance of tradition, and the often-passive, resilient role of good in the face of great evil. (To give an example of the pace at work, this is a series where one of the biggest moments of action or dramatic tension involves a bunch of people watching a man put his hand inside a clock). So when David L.

Cunningham’s movie The Seeker, based on the second book in the series, presented thoughtful, British, 11-year-old hero Will Stanton (Alexander Ludwig) as a girl-obsessed, aged-up, 14-year-old American, complete with flashy superpowers to aid him in his video-game-ish quest for six lost artifacts, it was hard for fans of the books not to roll their eyes, leaving the movie without a base to draw upon. Despite the presence of genre and cult TV fan favorites like Ian McShane and Christopher Eccleston, The Seeker sank at the box office, earning one of the worst openings in movie history, and (thankfully) torpedoing any chances of Cooper’s The Grey King or Greenwitch getting a similar treatment. Why it didn’t take off: The awful, generic title certainly didn’t help. But while it would be easy to blame Ludwig—who would later have far more YA success as the predatory Cato in The Hunger Games—for turning in a performance as an annoying, cookie-cutter teen hero, he’s really only doing what director Cunningham and screenwriter John Hodge asked of him.

They’re the ones who deserve the blame for stripping out what makes Cooper’s books interesting, and leaving a generic, unmarketable mess behind. [William Hughes] 11. The Black Cauldron (1985) In 1971, Disney optioned all five books in Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles Of Prydain fantasy series, so there may have been plans for a series of films from the start. But by the time animation started—nine years later—Disney had combined the first two books in the series into what became a rare debacle for the studio. The Black Cauldron is an anomaly in many ways. It was the first Disney film to use CGI, a rare Disney film with no songs, and the studio’s first-ever PG animated film. New studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg and CEO Michael Eisner clashed over editing scenes too graphic for children, eventually excising 12 minutes of footage and most of Elmer Bernstein’s score, which left a few awkward cuts in the finished product. Why it didn’t take off: Besides production problems and a story that deviates wildly from the books, Cauldron was seen as too dark by fans used to Disney’s usual light touch.

The film wound up costing $44 million to make—tying with Cleopatra and Heaven’s Gate as the then-most-expensive film ever—and only earned half of that back. It’s now looked on as Disney’s commercial low point before The Little Mermaid sparked a renaissance four years later. [Mike Vago] 12. The Giver (2014) Jeff Bridges spent two decades trying to get a big-screen version of Lois Lowry’s 1993 classroom staple off the ground. Acquiring, losing, and reacquiring the rights, he eventually grew old enough to play the title role, which he originally envisioned for his father, Lloyd. The Giver , released last summer by the Weinstein Company, faithfully preserved the monochromatic imagery of its source material, which is set in a dystopian society where humans have been genetically modified to see only in black and white. But director Philip Noyce and screenwriters Michael Mitnick and Robert B. Weide made plenty of other changes—aging up their preteen hero, bulking up the love story, and adding in some superfluous CGI action scenes.

The ending leaves room for more installments, but modest earnings ($45 million) and lukewarm reviews more or less killed any chance that Lowry’s three, less-popular sequels would make it to the screen. Bridges can take heart, at least, that’s he’s the best thing about the movie—a perfect choice for the wise, wizened Giver. Why it didn’t take off: By twisting The Giver to make it resemble the various modern YA franchises it inspired, the filmmakers ended up with what looked, ironically, like a bad Divergent knockoff. And fans of the book could smell a hatchet job. [A.A. Dowd] 13. Lemony Snicket’s A Series Of Unfortunate Events (2004) Lemony Snicket’s Series Of Unfortunate Events books were wildly popular upon publication, walking the line between hilarious camp and gothic horror for younger readers. After their parents’ death in a fire, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are entrusted to a relative named Count Olaf, a dastardly fellow with no regard for the Baudelaires’ well-being. Snicket (a.k.a.

Daniel Handler) created villains who were both hilarious and terrifying, and young heroes who were exceptionally resourceful and heartbreakingly human. Why it didn’t take off: A large part of the books’ charm is captured in its tone, a word which here means “cheeky and instructional, but never condescending.” So why Jim Carrey—an actor known for facial melodrama—was cast as Count Olaf is a mystery for the ages. So much of the books ride on Count Olaf being an object of ridicule but also one of terror, and Carrey’s elastic interpretation left out half that equation. [Laura M. Browning] 14. Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant (2009) After Twilight exploded onto movie screens in 2008, it was only natural that studios would cast around for other fang-based young adult fare to throw into the fire. It didn’t take them long to stumble across author Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak books, which chronicle a young man—also, confusingly, named Darren Shan—as he gets embroiled in a world of vampire politics and drama.

When director Paul Weitz was tapped to direct a colorful adaptation of the first three books of Shan’s 12-volume tale, he managed to assemble a remarkably top-notch cast for the endeavor, including Salma Hayek, Kristen Schaal, Orlando Jones, Ken Watanabe, and John C. Reilly—hot off Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Step Brothers —in a starring role as the vampiric Mr. Crepsley. And yet, audiences just didn’t seem to care, bypassing Cirque Du Freak in favor of harder horror films like Paranormal Activity and the sixth Saw film, leaving it to open seventh at the box office and just barely failing to break even on its budget. Besides killing the franchise faster than a blood-crazed Vampaneze (don’t ask), The Vampire’s Assistant also tanked the career of its young star, Chris Massoglia, who’s barely worked since its release.

(His co-star, Josh Hutcherson, has had slightly better luck in the young adult adaptation game.) Why it didn’t take off: Any number of reasons, including but not limited to: vampire fatigue, people’s fear of French words in titles, and America’s ultimate unwillingness to extend its love affair with John C. Reilly into letting him open a franchise-launching film. [William Hughes] 15. The Host (2013) When producers optioned The Host—Stephenie Meyer’s first post-Twilight­-saga novel, about a teenage girl who rebels against the alien parasite that occupies her body (and also falls for some sensitive stud, of course)—the author was still openly, publically discussing the plan to make a trilogy out of the story. Assumedly, everyone involved in getting this YA twist on Invasion Of The Body Snatchers to the screen was banking on a new hit franchise. But Meyer never delivered the proposed sequels, The Seeker and The Soul. Not that they would have gotten adapted anyway: The movie, directed by Andrew Niccol (Gattaca) and starring Saoirse Ronan, more or less flopped, despite inescapable advertisements featuring that ubiquitous Imagine Dragons song.

Also, the reviews were vicious. Why it didn’t take off: In the five years that elapsed between the release of the book and the release of the movie, The Host’s fanbase may have simply graduated out of the YA wheelhouse. (The lack of any sequels to keep people invested couldn’t have helped.) Plus, the premise, a kind of love square in which two women share one body and pine for different men, might have been a little too high concept for the Twilight crowd—it lacks the primal simplicity of Meyer’s first franchise. [A.A. Dowd] 16. Inkheart (2008) Author Cornelia Funke often draws favorable comparison to J.K. Rowling; she’s written many wonderful YA and intermediate fantasies that find new ways of plumbing tales of dragons and storybooks. Inkheart is about a father and daughter who can turn stories into real life just by reading aloud; problem is, a real person disappears into the pages for every fictional person who comes to life. Though the plot follows some expected patterns, the book is still charming and a little scary, and still full of warm fuzzies about parental love.

Why it didn’t take off: Sometimes a book—especially one about books—should stay on the page. That lesson wasn’t learned here until after the first of the trilogy bombed at the box office, barely making back its $60 million budget in worldwide grosses. Director Iain Softley failed to capture the nuanced charm of Funke’s book, and in a story about bringing characters to life, that’s pretty essential. [Laura M. Browning] 17. City Of Ember (2008) Five years before The Host, Saoirse Ronan was the face of another YA adaptation franchise flop, City Of Ember. Based on the post-apocalyptic science-fiction novel of the same name by Jeanne DuPrau, the film casts Ronan as protagonist Lina Mayfleet, who with the help of her friend Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway), discovers the necessary clues to allow them to escape their slowly decaying underground city. The series continued with The People Of Sparks, The Prophet Of Yonwood, and the final installment The Diamond Of Darkhold, only one of which was optioned for another film by Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman, though The People Of Sparks was never made.

It’s a shame, as each built on the full blooded characters and ingenious setting of the first. Why it didn’t take off: Although Ronan and the setting of Ember were both praised, director Gil Kenan’s rush to get through the material glossed over much of DuPrau’s engaging and explanatory plot, leaving many questions about the actual city of Ember unanswered. The result was a film full of pretty things to look at, void of the relationship-fostering material of the novel. [Becca James] 18. Holes (2003) Shia LaBeouf has become a joke—or, more accurately, a living, breathing meme—over the years, but all it takes is a rewatch of 2003’s Holes to remember that performance art aside, he has a lot of talent. It isn’t a perfect movie, but it’s a solid adaptation, one that honors some of the novel’s more reality-adjacent storytelling. Holes isn’t a fantastical book, but it has a fantastical feel to it, and tackles its larger themes with almost a tongue-in-cheek self-awareness.

(The performances are what make it memorable; Sigourney Weaver’s Warden, in particular, stands out.) The film did fine if not exceptionally at the box office, and most critics agreed at the time that it was a faithful adaptation with a lot of heart to it. If anything, it’s the original source material that got in the way of more movies than the first film itself. Most people don’t even know about Small Steps, Louis Sachar’s follow-up to Holes, which takes place in the same world and features some of the same characters but not the first novel’s protagonist, Stanley Yelnats. Why it didn’t take off: The second novel doesn’t take place at Camp Green Lake, so without the starpower of LaBeouf, Weaver, Tim Blake Nelson, or Jon Voight, the studio probably felt it wasn’t worth making the second film. And even if he could be involved, LaBeouf decided he wasn’t famous anymore . [Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya] 19-21.

Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker (2006), I Am Number Four (2011), and Beastly (2011) Alex Pettyfer, the English actor best known as Magic Mike’s Kid, is the reigning world champion of failed YA adaptation franchises. After starting out as a child model, Pettyfer made his big-screen debut at age 15 as the title character in the teen-spy flick Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker , having passed on starring in another failed YA franchise-starter, Eragon. (Fittingly, his only previous acting credit was as the lead in an ITV adaptation of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the 1857 novel that launched a popular, proto-YA 19th-century sub-genre of stories about English boarding schools.) Stormbreaker, which was based on the first in a series of books by Anthony Horowitz, made a whopping $677,646 in the United States, with a combined worldwide gross that came out to just a little over half of its $40 million budget; plans for a series of sequels—already in development, with Pettyfer contracted to star—were immediately scrapped.

Five years later, Pettyfer returned to the YA franchise game with the one-two of I Am Number Four and Beastly , released just weeks apart in early 2011. The former—directed by D.J. Caruso ( Disturbia , Eagle Eye ), produced by Michael Bay, and based on a series pseudonymously co-written by notorious memoir hoaxster James Frey—starred Pettyfer as an alien who is sent away to Earth to live incognito after the destruction of his home planet. The latter—a modern-day twist on Beauty And The Beast, based on the first in a cycle of books by Alex Flinn—cast Pettyfer as a very unconvincingly hideous Beast. Both made modest profits and were then quickly forgotten. Why they didn’t take off: Alex Rider: Operation Stormbreaker, I Am Number Four, and Beastly have two things in common: They all star Alex Pettyfer, and they’re all bad movies. And though Magic Mike would prove that Pettyfer could be good when used right, all three movies—based on series with generic concepts and limited audience recognition—stake more on his hunky good looks than anything like acting ability.

(This is especially problematic in Beastly, in which his character is supposed to be repulsive, but looks like Alex Pettyfer with scars and funky facial tattoos.) At least I Am Number Four has the benefit of some cool-looking camerawork from longtime Guillermo Del Toro cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, though that isn’t exactly the kind of thing that gets butts into seats. [Ignatiy Vishnevetsky] Cassandra Clare Talks ‘Mortal Instruments,’ Movie Releases, and More Home > Children's > Authors Cassandra Clare Talks ‘Mortal Instruments,’ Movie Releases, and More With multiple books, three forthcoming series, and a movie release this summer, Cassandra Clare is just getting started By Karen Springen | Aug 02, 2013 Sure, author Cassandra Clare is human—which makes her a “mundane” in the language of her young adult urban-fantasy novels. But she is hardly ordinary. The former Hollywood Reporter writer boasts an impressive 24 million books in print worldwide, more than 150,000 Facebook “likes,” and close to 170,000 Twitter followers.

With an enthusiasm reminiscent of the energetic demon-hunters (called Shadowhunters) in her novels, those loyal fans are helping to promote the highly anticipated August 21 big-screen release of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, based on her 2007 debut. Unique Features optioned City of Bones in 2009 and teamed up with Constantin Film for the production. Clare gave her blessing as screenwriter Jessica Postigo and director Harald Zwart compressed the 485-page book into a two-hour movie. “It has been a pleasure for everyone and very easy for the filmmakers to have her so close to the process,” said Zwart, who also directed 2010’s The Karate Kid. “Cassandra Clare writes wonderfully visually. It’s a director’s dream to get ahold of a book like that.” Some sticklers have quibbled (vociferously, online) that a few of the actors don’t quite match their book descriptions.

For example, actress Lily Collins, who is 24, five-foot-five, and a straight-haired brunette with hazel eyes, plays main character Clary Fray—who in City of Bones is turning 16, just over five feet tall, and a curly-haired redhead with green eyes. “You go for the best performance and the best type,” said Zwart. “I’m hoping that the purists will at least appreciate that we kept the spirit of the characters and the intentions of the book.” Clare, who saw a rough cut in March and the finished version on July 22, believes that will be the case. She watched, via computer, the auditions for everyone except Collins and “absolutely” voted for James Campbell Bower to play the male lead, Jace Wayland. “He’s gotten older and hotter!” she said. (Fans of the movie’s YouTube trailers—the first one boasts nearly 3.4 million views—largely agree. One calls Bower “purrrfecttt.”) Last fall, Clare spent two and a half weeks visiting the City of Bones set in Toronto.

While there, she worked on revisions to her manuscript for Clockwork Princess, the final title in her Infernal Devices trilogy, a companion series set in the Victorian era that also has been optioned for film by the Mortal Instruments team. The author is no stranger to the movie industry—her grandfather produced the original Tales from the Crypt films and let her tag along on set—and she makes a cameo in City of Bones, as a cat demon in a party scene. Following in the footsteps of previous page-to-screen blockbusters, Sony, the film’s distributor and marketer, is promoting a number of tie-ins. “We’d love for it to turn into the kind of franchise that Twilight and Harry Potter are,” said Gregory Economos, senior v-p of global consumer products for Sony Pictures. Hot Topic is selling movie-related apparel, jewelry, makeup, and temporary tattoos. Simon & Schuster imprint McElderry Books is releasing three tie-in books: Shadowhunter’s Guide, with photos of the film characters; City of Bones: The Official Illustrated Movie Companion, which includes interviews with Clare, Collins, and Zwart; and the original novel with new cover art from the film.

Meanwhile, since January, S&S has been sending booksellers reading-group guides, tattoos, and car window clings that read “Protected by Shadowhunters.” And at BEA, the publisher threw a blowout party for Clare at the neo-Gothic Angel Orensanz Center on Manhattan’s Lower East Side—complete with henna-tattoo artists and a tarot-card reader, and showed a five-minute clip from the film. The well-read author, whose stories mix romance and teen repartee with lines from Shakespeare and Blake, is looking far beyond the forthcoming movie. Currently she is putting the finishing touches on City of Heavenly Fire, her sixth and final Mortal Instruments title, due out May 2014. (On the City of Bones set, actors approached her to ask whether they were going to die in book six, but she replied, “’I’m not going to tell you!’ ”) Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes, based on the second book in the series, will begin filming this fall, and a director for Clockwork Angel, first of the Infernal Devices books, is expected to be announced soon.

Clare and her husband, Joshua Lewis, are collaborating on The Shadowhunter’s Codex, billed as a “training manual,” out October 2013. And, along with writer pals Maureen Johnson and Sarah Rees Brennan, she’s writing 10 e-story installments about fan-favorite warlock Magnus Bane (a centuries-old, youthful-looking immortal), which will be published as a print collection in September 2014. An Author’s Origin Story After a stint running the children’s section at a Barnes and Noble in Los Angeles (“that was one of the things that got me hooked on kids’ books and YA”), Clare worked as a journalist, first in L.A. and then in New York as a freelancer, writing under her given name, Judith Rumelt. Meanwhile, she was writing Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter fan fiction as Cassandra Claire (she dropped the “i” and retired the fanfic name when she went pro). A visit to a friend’s workplace—a tattoo parlor—about a dozen years ago sparked the idea for the Mortal Instruments novels, whose half-angel, half-human characters get powers from runes etched into their skin.

Around the same time, she began participating in a children’s book–writing online discussion group, where she met her now-husband. She picked up evening work as a freelance copyeditor for Star and the National Enquirer, and worked on City of Bones during the day. That book sold in 2005; by 2009 she was writing fantasy fiction fulltime. Clare, born in Iran to American parents, spent much of her childhood moving with her family from country to country (her father, a professor of international business strategy, was posted to various universities). Her parents divorced when she was 19; both later remarried. “Luke, who is Clary’s sort-of stepfather, is based on my own stepfather,” she said. “There are so many children of divorced parents. I was trying to get across the message that it’s not so much blood as the people who love you and take care of you.” But make no mistake: Clare is not Clary. “She’s an artist. I’m terrible at art. I’m much more cautious.” That said, Clare and Clary do share some similarities.

“When I was growing up, I always had all these books about magical heroines, and they would always have blonde hair or black hair,” she explained. “As a red-headed, freckled girl, I felt like we were unrepresented. I wrote about the kind of girl I wanted to read about.” Clearly, her efforts are resonating with readers. In July 2012, a fan-led cover reveal of Clockwork Princess drew more than 30,000 tweets in two hours. In March 2013, a similar campaign to uncover the book’s first chapter garnered more than 560,000 tweets in 27 hours. “We try to step it up with every Cassie book,” says Anne Zafian, v-p and deputy publisher of children’s books at S&S. “That’s not easy.” The author is doing her part to keep the momentum going. She writes from 1 to 6 p.m. in a coffee shop a few miles from her home outside Amherst, Mass., often with other author friends, including Holly Black. “You need somebody keeping an eye on you so you’re not online shopping,” Clare explained.

Black is more than just a watchdog: the pair are co-writing a five-book fantasy series, called The Magisterium; Scholastic will publish the first installment, The Iron Trial, in 2014. Clare continues to work closely with editor Karen Wojtyla, who acquired the Mortal Instruments series back in 2005. (“I think it took until about page five, and I knew I wanted to publish it,” said Wojtyla.) The veteran editor sends changes the old-fashioned way—with pencil comments in the margin and an overall editorial letter. “That manuscript can’t ever be lost,” Clare said. “I rewrite scenes on the paper.” For City of Bones, she used scissors, tape, and glue to revise. (“Karen was like, ‘What have you done?!’ ”) With the impending Mortal Instruments finale, Clare and Wojtyla are gearing up for two new series: the Dark Artifices trilogy, which follows Shadowhunters in present-day Los Angeles, and another, as yet untitled, that will follow further adventures of the Victorian Shadowhunters—“with a new cast of characters but with appearances from people we might know,” said Wojtyla.

And this month, between movie events and writing sessions, Clare plans to get her first tattoo, of the rune that makes the wearer afraid of nothing. Given Goodreads comments like this one, from a fan not so patiently awaiting next year’s release of City of Heavenly Fire —“If I die before this book comes out, I’ll come back and haunt her forever”—the extra protection sounds prudent. This article has been corrected. An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Cassandra Clare's husband's first name as Jason. It is Joshua. More Coming Attractions Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters The second film in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson saga (2006) catches up with the son of Poseidon and fellow demigods as they train to battle the titular mythological beasts and to retrieve the Golden Fleece. To date, more than 33 million books (across the Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Kane Chronicles, and Heroes of Olympus series, all from Hyperion) are in print in the U.S. The film, from 1492 Pictures/Sunswept Entertainment and 20th Century Fox, arrives in theaters August 7.

Ender’s Game Amid recent controversy surrounding author Orson Scott Card’s anti-gay views, the film adaptation of his sci-fi cult classic Ender’s Game (Tor, 1985) is slated for a big-screen release on November 1 (albeit with Lionsgate Entertainment publically distancing itself from the author’s statements). The movie, about a boy who is plucked from Earth to enroll at Battle School in space, stars Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford. The Book Thief Brian Percival directs this screen adaptation of Markus Zusak’s Printz Honor book (Knopf, 2006). The bestselling YA novel, which is narrated by Death and takes place in Nazi Germany, has enjoyed significant adult crossover appeal. The Fox 2000 film stars Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson; it opens November 15. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire One of the most anticipated sequels of 2013, the second installment in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy (Scholastic, 2009) sees Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) targeted by the Capital because their defiant win has incited rebellion throughout the Districts.

The Lionsgate film launches November 22. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Jackson’s second film based on Tolkien’s preamble to the Lord of the Rings series follows Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) and the rest of the Middle-earth crew on a journey to defeat the dragon Smaug. The New Line Cinema production premieres December 13. The Maze Runner Dashner’s 2009 book is the first in a dystopian series from Delacorte that centers on a group of boys locked inside an enormous labyrinth. The original trilogy plus a prequel, The Kill Order (2012), have sold a combined 2.4 million copies worldwide. Director Wes Ball’s film adaptation stars Dylan O’Brien, Will Poulter, and Kaya Scodelario, and will be out February 14.

Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters The first film based on Richelle Mead’s six-book paranormal romance series (Razorbill, 2007) introduces Rose Hathaway (played by Zoey Deutch), a Dhampir, or the child of a vampire and a human, whose destiny is to protect gentle, mortal vampires called the Moroifrom their immortal—and malevolent—ancestors, the Strigoi. Across the series, the books have sold more than eight million copies worldwide. Release date February 14. Divergent Veronica Roth’s first novel in a sci-fi trilogy (HarperCollins/Tegen, 2011) takes place in a dystopian Chicago, where society is divided into rigid factions based on personality. Shailene Woodley stars as Beatrice ‘Tris’ Prior, who learns that she is a “divergent,” and doesn’t conform to any of the factions. The Summit Entertainment film, due out March 21, 2014, also stars Theo James as Beatrice’s love interest, Tobias ‘Four’ Eaton, and Kate Winslet as Jeanine Matthews. The series has sold well into seven figures and has spawned a plethora of fan sites.

The third book in the series, Allegiant, will be out October 22.—Matia Burnett A version of this article appeared in the 08/05/2013 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: 'City' of Bestsellers ADVERTISEMENT

Question: Twihards are Twitter followers of which movie franchsie based on a series of novels?
Answer: Twilight